Hart from Puck Pedia was on NHL Network and was asked if it was possible for the Rangers to add Patrick Kane at the deadline and said:
“It is doable. It’s a little tricky. First step is that Kane would have to come with Chicago retaining 50% and another team retaining 25% so that when he gets to the Rangers he’d be at a $2.625 million dollar cap hit.”
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“Step two is that they’d have to move a couple of players off the roster. Obviously, Kravtsov is a guy that we’ve heard about, so let’s take him, but just moving him out and Kane in wouldn’t work. Even if they move a guy like Jake Leschyshyn to waivers or down to the minors, they couldn’t do that at the deadline, they’d still be just short. Because they are an under the cap team and cap space accrues there is a way around that. If they were to send a player down, let’s say Jake Leschyshyn, if they could waive him and send him down, and if they did it by the 27th they would accrue enough space by the March 3rd trade deadline to then be able to send Kravtsov out and Kane in. It’s going to be very tight. They’d have some other ways of doing it, like they could maybe send down a contributing guy like Schneider down, who doesn’t need waivers, for a few days, but they are so tight and a team under the cap every day matters. If we saw them send a guy like Leschyshyn on waivers and send him down, that could be a precursor to making the space to bring on Kane, but they have to get to work quickly, otherwise, we’d have to see a player on the roster with a real cap hit moving out as well.”
He added that the cost in actual dollars for a third team to retain salary would be $165,000 and that likely correlates to a fifth or sixth-round pick.